split and assign to arrayref in one go?

rovf has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello Monk Fellows:
Is it possible to do the following without reverting to a temporary variable?

# split a string and put the pieces into an array and 
# assign the reference to this array to $aref
my @temporary=split(/\D+/,"1,2xx4:17");
$aref=\@temporary # [1,2,4,17]
[download]

I thought about putting split into array context with something like ()=split(...), but this would also empty my array...

--
Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>

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Re: split and assign to arrayref in one go? by moritz (Cardinal) on Jun 16, 2008 at 14:33 UTC
You need `[...]` for creating array refs: `my $aref = [ split(/\D+/,"1,2xx4:17") ];` [download] See perlreftut, perlref and References Quick Reference for details. (Update: I just noticed the latter is about dereferencing, not about creating anonymous data structures. Might be helpful nonetheless).	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: split and assign to arrayref in one go? by rovf (Priest) on Jun 16, 2008 at 16:05 UTC
Oh my! I think it's time to go home, if I couldn't have seen it by myself. Probably I'm working too long already. Thanks a lot for your solution! -- Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>	[reply]
Re: split and assign to arrayref in one go? by radiantmatrix (Parson) on Jun 16, 2008 at 15:58 UTC
An alternative to moritz's solution, you could do this: `@{ $aref } = split(/\D+/,"1,2xxx4:17");` [download] It says "store the result of the split into the array referenced by `$aref`". If `$aref` is undefined or an ArrayRef already, this works, even with strict and warnings. `$ perl -w -Mstrict -MData::Dumper -e 'my $x; @{$x} = split /\s/, "the +one true"; print Dumper($x)' $VAR1 = [ 'the', 'one', 'true' ];` [download] If `$aref` is a different kind of reference, then you will get a fatal "Not an ARRAY reference". `$ perl -w -Mstrict -MData::Dumper -e 'my $x = {}; @{$x} = split /\s/, +"the one true"; print Dumper($x)' Not an ARRAY reference at -e line 1.` [download] <–radiant.matrix–> Ramblings and references “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” — Herm Albright I haven't found a problem yet that can't be solved by a well-placed trebuchet	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: split and assign to arrayref in one go? by rovf (Priest) on Jun 16, 2008 at 16:13 UTC
Autovivification if `$aref` hasn't been defined yet - this is also an elegant solution!!! I already went with moritz's idea, but will keep yours in mind for the next occasion. -- Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>	[reply] [d/l]